CEN13CA053 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
AD Holdings Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Coulter Field (CFD) to Coulter Field (CFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA053
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N131AA
- Operator
- AD Holdings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coulter Field (CFD), Bryan, TXTo Coulter Field (CFD), Bryan, TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control on ground
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was receiving training to obtain a helicopter rating; he had 31 hours of helicopter flight time, and the accident occurred on his second solo flight. The pilot reported that he was attempting to take off from a wet grass area and that when he increased the collective to lift off, the helicopter began to roll to the right with the right skid still on the ground. He moved the cyclic to the left and the helicopter responded by rolling to the left with the left skid contacting the ground. The pilot then applied right cyclic and the helicopter again rolled to the right. The right skid contacted the ground, and the helicopter rolled over onto its right side. As a result of the accident, the main rotor blades and the helicopter fuselage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s over-correction in an attempt to stabilize the helicopter during liftoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA053
- Event ID
- 20121107X11634
- Case number
- CEN13CA053
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: da75a82f4110d1b247a3787bd3f9ac638c2838b59a4035f948bad19a9c66531a; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:22:02.415Z.